This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

The tragic fire in a Quebec seniors’ home is a tragic reminder that sprinklers, and adequate staff, are needed to save lives.

Firefighters search through the debris after a massive fire at a seniors' residence n L'Isle-Verte, a town of approximately 1,500 in Quebec. (Randy Risling / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Fri., Jan. 24, 2014

It’s a terrible tragedy that has unfolded with alarming frequency across Canada: vulnerable residents of seniors’ homes perish in fires that could have been averted if proper safety measures were in place.

The latest misfortune started early Thursday morning at a seniors’ residence in the small Quebec town of L’Isle-Verte. Eight are known officially to have lost their lives, but almost 30 other residents are still unaccounted for, their bodies likely trapped under the thick ice created when firefighters sprayed water on the blaze. On Friday, firefighters were using hot water vapour in an attempt to break through and search the wreckage for bodies.

Underlying this heartbreaking tableau is a terrible failure of policy: the Résidence du Havre was in full compliance with Quebec’s safety standards, a bar set alarmingly low.

As the Star’s Allan Woods reports, water sprinklers are required in Quebec residences only when tenants are not remotely self-sufficient or the building is more than three stories high. Simply put, that leaves many vulnerable residents at risk.

Thankfully, Ontario now has rules requiring that all homes for seniors and the disabled be equipped with sprinklers by 2018. But the Quebec fire is a powerful reminder of the urgency of this initiative. Health Minister Deb Matthews is right to consider moving up the phase-in sprinkler systems.

Demands on seniors’ residences are growing as the population ages, so it’s important that Canada has a serious discussion on nation-wide standards for fire safety rules. Otherwise, these unnecessary fire deaths are bound to continue. If federal officials won’t develop a national safety strategy, then provinces that lack such rules would be wise to follow Ontario’s example.

It’s fair to say that after many years of lobbying by the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs, the new fire safety regulations put forward by Ontario’s Liberal government last year are the toughest in the country. Announced by Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur in May, the plan includes strict rules on sprinklers and requires every seniors’ home to face an annual fire-safety inspection.

During these inspections, firefighters put the home through a mock drill — using the lowest staff-to-resident ratios — to ensure that residents can safely escape, even when sprinklers are taken into consideration. The tests check, among other things, the time available for staff to get to the room where the fire originates, remove the residents in that room and close the door.

Fire inspectors will then make recommendations that could include adding extra workers to certain shifts, or placing residents with mobility issues closer to the ground floor. Homes must act on the recommendations, thus dramatically improving the level of safety.

Drills like this are important because during overnight shifts there often isn’t enough staff to help seniors outside. Even with sprinklers, many residents are immobile, drugged or suffering from dementia, all of which makes a quick exit highly doubtful.

Ontario has done a good job creating fire safety rules, but until the sprinklers are in place and the new regulations widely adopted, residents will remain as vulnerable as the elderly in Quebec. It’s better to be safe than terribly sorry.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com